


Not a wonderful life, but good enough

by Salomonderiel



Series: Tagged, modern era barricade boys [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, First Kiss, Getting Together, Multi, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salomonderiel/pseuds/Salomonderiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’d met when the bald, skinny boy had fallen out of a tree to land heavily on the pavement in front of Joly. </p>
<p>And that seemed to have set the whole tone, really. </p>
<p>(Can be read as stand-alone, but the side mention of Mabeuf would make more sense having read Tagged first)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a wonderful life, but good enough

**Author's Note:**

> Minor warnings for cancer and therapy, but neither are described in details as they can be kinda triggery for myself, so. Yeaah, only vague description of a panic attack and therapy session, and no descriptions of cancer symptoms. One minor death, but not a named character... what else... oh yeah vicious daisy is this weird diagram you get when you go through CBT, which I received for medical related anxiety disorder. I swear, I have a whole folder of the fucking things. 
> 
> Thanks, as ever, for Priya for reading through this for me!
> 
> I'm making this sound more depressing than it actually is. Um. Enjoy!

They’d met when the bald, skinny boy had fallen out of a tree to land heavily on the pavement in front of Joly.

Doing what his mum had taught him, Joly had put the unconscious boy in the kids’ trolley on top of the vegetables he was taking home from his grandparents’, pulled him back home, brought him round, washed him off, and put a plaster on his grazes.

And that seemed to have set the whole tone, really.

*

Eleven years old, and they’d spent the entire day out in the field, worrying about leaving their junior school to move up to the upper school.

“At least we’re both going, though.”

“Yeah, there’s still that.”

Bossuet chewed on a piece of grass, as Joly unwrapped the cling-film from the marmite sandwiches his mum had made. “We won’t be the oldest anymore,” Bossuet mused. “Won’t be able to make the little ones do our bidding.”

“We _are_ little ones,” Joly pointed out, picking away a piece of mould. “We’re gonna be the ones running about doing even _bigger_ people’s bidding.”

“Only if they can catch me,” Bossuet replied, grinning. His fingers scrabbled at the dirt and the grass. Joly patiently held out half his sandwich in the hope that Bossuet would remember to eat something other than the ground. “You’ll see. We’ll rule the place before we leave. We’ll be _legends_.” Bossuet still hadn’t taken the sandwich, instead was running his fingers through the tufts of hair that were starting to grow back.

“It will take time,” Joly agreed, nodding, and slowly grinning. “But we’re going to be _epic_.”

Bossuet grinned, and finally took the sandwich, staining the white bread brown with his muddy fingers. “Oh!” he cried out suddenly, wide eyes fixing on something in the grass. He dove for it, the sandwich falling from his grasp. Joly rolled his eyes. “Four leaf clover!” Bossuet crowed, rolling back and holding up his prize for ten seconds. Then he thrust it at Joly.

Obediently, Joly took it from him. “These are meant to be lucky,” he said, slightly stunned that Bossuet had found it, of all people.

“Have it!”

Joly laughed. “I think you need the luck more than me,” he said, offering it back to Bossuet.

“Nah,” Bossuet said, dismissing it with a waft of his hand. “Not me. Lady luck, she loves me. I’m her little pet.”

Smiling, Joly tucked the clover into his pocket.

On the way back, Bossuet got his foot caught on a cattle grid and landed on his head so hard he got mild concussion.

*

There was a brief – very brief, Joly always reminded himself, _very_ brief – scare that the leukaemia had returned, when Bossuet was 12.

Bossuet was only in hospital for just over a month. They’d caught it early enough. Mrs Lesgles said it was thanks to Joly.

Every day, after school, Joly would run from class to the hospital with a new comic to read with Bossuet. He’d clamber into the bed beside him, and would listen and laugh as Bossuet read it to him, complete with extravagant sound effects.

The day Bossuet was due to be released, Joly showed up dressed up in a makeshift Catwoman outfit. Bossuet laughed so hard he had to fall back onto the bed again.

“The illness is _clearly_ just jealous of my fabulous hair,” Bossuet said when they got back to his house. Joly was perched on the edge of the bath, legs swinging, and watching carefully as Bossuet plugged in the razor. “Better stay on the safe side, eh?” He shaved off the last few tufts, grinning with every clump that fell.

Joly had asked him why he was so happy, still slightly rattled himself. Bossuet had laughed – not at him, never at him – and just said, “Well, I’m alive! What’s the point of being unhappy when I’m alive?”

*

16, and Bossuet charged into the Joly household unannounced, yelling a quick hello to his second pair of parents, falling down the stairs in his rush to get to Joly’s room.

“I got a dog! _They got me a fucking dog!”_

Joly looked up from his Game Boy Advance, took in the bruise forming on Bossuet’s forehead, frowned, then crowed with laughter and almost fell off the bed himself to get to his feet. “You’re joking!”

Bossuet shook his head madly, grin still in place.

“Well – well – what’re you gonna call it?”

Bossuet looked at him like he was insane. “Well, _I_ don’t know, do I?” he said, tutting. “ _You_ do the naming!”

He didn’t wait to see if Joly was following before sprinting out of the house again, back to his dog.

Didn’t matter, though. Joly was only a few steps behind him.

*

Joly was struggling to fit all the new leaflets and pieces of paper with diagrams and tables into his rucksack when he left the surgery, so he almost walked straight past Bossuet, heading down the street to the train station on autopilot.

“Oi! That’s no way to treat your long suffering chauffer!”

Joly stumbled in shock, almost dropping the final booklet, but was grinning before he even spun around. Bossuet was barely a step away from him and enveloped him in a hug before he had time to organise himself, so papers went cascading to the floor, but Joly didn’t care. He laughed into the embrace, squeaking a little when Bossuet tried to lift him up, but the skinny boy barely managed a centimetre. “Wasn’t aware I _had_ a long suffering chauffer,” he chuckled, whacking Bossuet lightly as he bent down to pick up the papers – again. He’d been given another one of the vicious daisy – he could probably draw that by heart by now, that diagram. He had about ten at home.

Bossuet scoffed, waiting with casually crossed arms as Joly got his shit together. “’Course you do. Me. Who else do you know who’s been suffering as long as I have? Got all your stuff? How was the session today?”

Straightening up and zipping up his rucksack, Joly shrugged. “Same as ever. Few good pointers, but I think he’s running out of stuff. Going to have an induced panic attack soon, I think. He said it might help me cope if I have one without the negative side effects, or something.”

“Tell me when, and I’ll take you somewhere nice after,” Bossuet said, looping an arm around his friend’s shoulder and drawing him up the street. “Somewhere not that nice, mind you – poor sixth formers like us, I can manage, maybe... ooh, Burger King. Subway, if I’m feeling really nice.”

“Induced panic attack? I want a Chinese buffet, nothing less,” Joly teased, poking Bossuet’s side.

“ _That_ fancy? Christ, I’d better start saving up...” Bossuet bumped their heads together, lightly. “Ahh, but I know what will cheer you up. Going for a nice long drive in _my_ car...”

Up ahead was the battered old ford Bossuet’s mum had been driving for the last five years, and which, miraculously, Bossuet had passed his driving test in, last week. Only third attempt, as well. Joly hadn’t taken lessons yet. Thought it was a bit impractical, putting a time-bomb like him behind the wheel of something that could cause some serious damage. Be a bit silly, to run some old biddy over because he’d freaked about some mouldy cheese he’d eaten when he was ten, or something.

Something in the way Bossuet had said ‘my’ made Joly take notice. “They... they _wouldn’t_ have...”

“Mum said she didn’t want me crashing her car,” Bossuet said cheerfully, steering Joly towards the passenger seat. “So she said I better have this old rust bucket, and she could get a car of her own!”

Shaking his head at the folly of mankind, Joly got into the car. Bossuet was cackling proudly as he swung into the driver’s seat. “I hope you’ve not got anything that leaks in that bag. Don’t want to ruin the upholstery.”

“What’s this? Car rules?” Joly asked, amused.

“You bet your arse. And if you’re _really_ nice, I might even take you to a drive-through to grab a burger.”

“Ha ha. Bossuet?”

“Yeah?”

“I might be wrong, but... don’t you need to turn on the ignition, before you try the pedals?”

“...Oh yeah.”

*

Joly was so used to see Bossuet smiling, that seeing him cry was strange. It was beyond wrong.

But then, he guessed even Bossuet wouldn’t be able to make jokes at his dad’s funeral.

The graveyard was filled with men who’d served with Bossuet’s dad. Joly only knew a few, and he knew Bossuet knew only a few more than him. But it was okay, because they were keeping their distance, grieving quietly, and were leaving Bossuet and Mrs Lesgles to the comfort of close friends and family. Mrs Lesgles was with Mr Mabeuf and Joly’s parents.

Joly wasn’t leaving Bossuet’s side. He kept a firm grip on Bossuet’s hand as they cried together, but Joly wasn’t too scared. He knew, because Bossuet was always telling him, that everything would be alright in the end.

*

They both stood, holding envelopes, staring down at the little letters that, supposedly, dictated their future.

“Joly?”

“Yeah?”

Bossuet gulped. “What do we do now?”

“Well...” Joly paused, checking those four letters again. “Well, I guess we go to Uni.”

Bossuet nodded demurely. “Like we planned?”

“Yeah. Like we planned.” Joly looked up, eyes flickering quickly over to the three letters on Bossuet’s sheet, and his blank face finally splitting into a grin. “Holy shit.”

Bossuet laughed. “Holy _shit!”_

He was beaming from ear to ear. Joly could have kissed him there and then.

*

They had dinner that night in the one fancy restaurant in the village they lived in. Six of them – Joly, his Mum and Dad, and Bossuet with his Mum and Nan.

Turns out that both sets of parents had bought presents. Bossuet was given – well, _first_ he was given a novelty packed of plasters, which made everyone laugh (and Bossuet gave to Joly as they packed, knowing that Joly would always be the one to patch him back up again) before being presented with a yellow iPod nano, with all his favourite songs already on it. He’d always said yellow was the colour of happiness.

Joly was given a Victorian medicine cabinet, still in good conditions, bottles empty but still there. He clearly couldn’t believe what he was seeing to begin with, but when he finally realised, he let out a stream of swear words that had Bossuet’s Nan leaning over to slap the back of his head. Joly apologised, laughing, before holding the cabinet up carefully and looking across at Bossuet with the most ridiculous stunned, excited and disbelieving expression.

As the rest of their family laughed, Bossuet grinned, thinking that he could have just leant over and kissed him, there and then.

*

It was Bossuet who met them first. Technically. They’ve figured this out, and apparently Bossuet met them first by only four minutes.

He’d just left one his lectures, still on a slight buzz that he _was_ sat there, listening to lectures on what he wanted to study, not quite understanding everything that was said but still loving it, when he managed to catch a few words of a conversation by the three guys in front of him.

They’d just passed a man selling poppies for November.

Bossuet could never quite remember exactly what they were saying, later. But he knew the gist of it. One pretentious twat was, loudly and very opinionatedly, questioning why the hell armed forces needed money anyway, there were better things money could go to, people who willingly went to kill people knew the risks, so why should we give the wounded our money?

When he could remain calm, Bossuet was good with words. Good at persuading people to think his way of thinking, with a cheery smile and easy attitude. That was why he was studying to be a lawyer. But when he got angry, his words would... get away with him.

So after a few poor comments, Bossuet gave up on words and punched one of the guys fairly in the nose.

It turned into a scrap pretty quickly, and _technically_ Bossuet was outnumbered, but he was a _lot_ more pissed than any of the other three were. But it was okay, because barely a minute had passed before two people joined him.

Bossuet later found out their names were Enjolras, a second year, and Bahorel, in his final year.

“You’ve got a shit swing on you, kiddo,” Bahorel chuckled, patting Bossuet on the shoulder.

When Bossuet winced at the gesture – he’d definitely pulled something in his shoulder – the other, Enjolras, laughed, and slipped an around Bossuet’s chest, helping him stand upright. “Not that I’m one to criticise throwing a punch to teach some neaderthals a lesson, that wasn’t really an intelligent move.”

Bossuet grinned as wide as a split lip would let him. “Hey, they had it coming.”

Bahorel’s laughed boomed across the whole forum. “That they did! You know, I think I could like you.”

Bossuet laughed, then realised his ribs hurt, too. “Uh, that’s a little creepy, not going to lie.”

“He means it with good intentions,” Enjolras explained, wryly. “Looks like you’re going to need help walking. Where can we take you?”

Joly’s room, obviously. A bit further than his own, but Joly always had his plasters.

It wasn’t Joly that opened the door.

“Ah, Enjolras, timely appearance as ever,” a cheerful, well-dressed skinny brunette said, upon opening the door. “We were just telling our new acquaintance – oh dear, who’s this invalid?”

From inside drifted out Joly’s voice. “Bossuet?”

Bossuet laughed. “How did you ever guess?”

His friend appeared at the shoulder of the new brunette, saw Bossuet’s battered face, the two men holding him up, then rolled his eyes. “Guess you’d better come in,” he said.

_Another_ new guy, sat on Joly’s bed, raised an eyebrow when the three of them entered, and said to Enjolras, “You haven’t been beating up capitalists again, have you? I thought you’d stopped that.”

Turned out, Joly had two guests. He’d met them in the queue for the campus coffee shop, overheard them debating about the pros and cons of euthanasia, and, of course, Joly had some rather strong views on that topic, so he couldn’t help but interject – much to the delight of the other two.

Courfeyrac and Combeferre, their names were.

But he’d _definitely_ met them a full four minutes _after_ Enjolras and Bahorel had started to save Bossuet’s arse, so Bossuet got the credit for meeting them first.

*

A Sunday night a month or so later, Bossuet knocked on Courfeyrac’s door probably far too late, considering that both of them had nine o’clocks the next morning. But, upon opening the door to see Bossuet’s dejected face, Courfeyrac smiled softly, and stepped aside to let Bossuet in.

Bossuet moved without a word to sit on the bed. He stared at his hands for a few seconds, before blurting out, “I’m not right for him, am I?”

With a soft sigh of understanding, Courfeyrac pulled Bossuet into quick hug, before going to put the kettle on.

When Joly came to Courfeyrac’s room only a few days later, sat on his bed and said, “He just deserves someone _better_ ,” Courfeyrac just smiled widely.

*

Nothing had gone wrong.

But then, nothing _had_ to.

Just a night, in his room, people being loud next door and nothing, absolutely nothing Joly did was calming him down.

He’d tried colouring in, with crayola, but the crayon had snapped in his hand and his shaking had caused him to go over the lines. Makes sense, that he couldn’t even do that. He didn’t seem to be able to do anything else.

That there was no evidence for this assumption didn’t stop him believing it, some nights. This was one of those nights.

He was curled up on his bed, staring blankly at a wall, not having the energy to reach for his laptop, to pick up a book. He couldn’t stop himself shaking. Couldn’t breathe, but in stuttered gasps. Couldn’t stop tears slowly tracing paths down his cheeks. And couldn’t stop feeling like such a fucking failure.

It was a long time – too long, probably – before he reached for his phone and sent Bossuet a message.

Ten minutes was all it took before Bossuet let himself, carrying an unopened packet of bourbons and a mug, dressed in his pyjamas. He nudged Joly to the side and squeezed on next to him, talking about nothing in particular. He continued until Joly was ready to talk, and when he did, Bossuet listened with a comforting smile.

Joly could sleep that night, with Bossuet snoring loudly beside him.

*

When it happened, it wasn’t planned.

Well, on one side.

That one was pretty certain that, if he _did_ try and plan it, it’d just go tits-up anyway.

So, on the tube, heading to St Pancras to get  the train back to their little village in the middle of nowhere for the Christmas hols, and getting evil looks from the rest of the passengers due to the two huge suitcases taking up the end of the carriage, Bossuet leant over and kissed Joly.

It was still pretty crap, to be honest. He’d managed to time it so his lips hit – and hit is probably the best way to describe it – Joly’s just as the train slammed to a stop. What started as a peck turned into a painful knocking of teeth, then foreheads, then groaning as they both leant back and rubbed their bruises better.

“Sorry,” Bossuet said, wincing, and on reflex leaning over to rub Joly’s forehead.

“S’alright,” Joly replied, smiling slightly. “You only beat me to it by a few hours.”

Bossuet paused, fingers still pressed to Joly’s forehead. He frowned, and Joly grinned.

He – the sensible one of the two, who actually had plans which worked, had planned to kiss Bossuet when they got back home. Sort of a, ‘welcome home’ present. Which of course, didn’t make sense, considering that Joly had been away with Bossuet the whole time.

But then again, making sense wasn’t really a priority for either of them.

*

They didn’t even need to tell anyone when they got back after the hols.

Everyone already seemed to know.

Joly protested that they weren’t _that_ obvious, that they must have seen the photos they’d uploaded from Christmas, and though he didn’t _remember_ being particularly couple-y in the photos, they _must_ have been, and everyone had seen it from them.

Almost dropping his mug, Bossuet just laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he chortled with affection, tipping half the pot of hot chocolate powder into the mug, “They knew before we did.”

“We did,” Courfeyrac confirmed later when he popped by to steal from Joly’s endless supply of bourbons, sounding more sincere than either of the other two had ever seen him.

*

A few months later, when one of the first protests they attended took a turn for the worse and a fatherly Combeferre ordered the younger two to get away, they did as instructed.

Slightly more scared than they’d needed to be – and looking back on it now, they laughed at their younger selves – they’d ran several streets away before barrelling into a music store.

There, testing out a piano, was a beautiful Spanish woman who glared at them and threatened to call the cops if they didn’t provide an adequate explanation why they were in the shop and bearing split lips and bruises. Too stunned to come up with a lie, the two explained about the protest and unsavoury outcome.

She grinned, and like that, the final piece clicked into place.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I've a Bossuet playlist in the waiting, but no ideas for a graphic for it... and I'm still writing Tagged, expect a lot more writing to be done on it over xmas hols, now I have no immediate deadlines!
> 
> Thanks, again!


End file.
